A Lesson Learned
by Mirth
Summary: "Almost twenty years later, and there it was. Me without love to give and Amy Abbot desperately wanting some. I felt nothing, just a little sad, because the moment finally came and now I would have to let it slide by." *1st person Ephram drabble*


**Disclaimer: **If I owned Everwood, Amy and Ephram would be together, Bright would be mine, and Colin would scamp happily along. As these things have yet to occur (;)), you can pretty much guess I am in no ways affiliated with the WB, the owners of Everwood. Nor do I happen to own _Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Great Gatsby, or __Harry Potter. Also, I'm in no ways affiliated with Stanford University. _

**A/N: **Some drabble that popped in my head. Rather angsty….

**A Lesson Learned**

By

**Mirth**

There is always a lesson to learn in times of great tragedy. 

Or, at least that is what the general consensus seems to think. Whenever people find out my mother died when I was fifteen, they will always, without fail, look up at me with the type of expression which you just know they are hoping looks sincere and say, "That's terrible, I'm so sorry," even though they have nothing to apologize for and then they will pause. 

Just pause. Not quickly change the subject or inquire anymore into the "incident." They would just pause and wait for me to say something. After ten years of this, I finally got the hint. 

They wanted some sort of reassurance, some little aphorism that could ensure them that perhaps death isn't the scary, formidable obstacle it presents itself to be. And so I came up with something. 

"Yes, but, if there is one thing I learned, first love is true love."

I would leave them with that to ponder over, wondering exactly what it meant. Was a mother every boy's first love? Was I referring to five years ago, when my father finally married Nina, something I saw a long time coming and something that terribly surprised me all the same?

But I knew what I was talking about. It was like my parents; they were each other's first loves. Terribly romantic all the same, but throughout the years filled with all the fighting and yelling and heartbreaks, it was the thing they held on to. I never realized it until retrospect, but I think its why my mother would continually come back or the reason my father just didn't go up to Boston and never come home. 

And even today when I come back "home" (Its still a bit odd to refer to Everwood as my home and I don't know if I will ever be able to make myself say it, out of sheer obstinacy.) I watch my father and Nina and I conclude that they are happy now because they weren't happy before and I wonder if they met each other first, would anything develop between them? I always answer no, because whatever they are now, is because who they once were and how they were molded over the years from when they met their first loves. 

Delia used to have a massive crush on Bright a la Ginny Weasley in _Harry Potter _(although I will always steadfastly deny ever reading those books). He's eight years older than her, but that fact never deterred her. She would always look up at him and sigh and gaze dreamily off in space and it made me grimace and scowl more than usual, but I always figured it would eventually fade away into obscurity. But then, awhile back, Bright and I went to visit her at Stanford, where she was busy cramming for her MCATs and as we walked around campus and joked and talked, I couldn't help but notice, I am her older brother you know, Bright's eyes shift over to my sister, how he laughed a little louder that day, smiled a little bit more, and all other tell-tale signs. Needless to say, it would have made me very apprehensive if I hadn't remembered my off-the-cuff remark, "first love is true love." 

It was certainly true for Amy. 

To no one's great surprise, she married Colin a little after collage and they settled down near Denver. She loved him and he loved her and they wanted white picket fences and dogs and children to a degree that was sickening. 

And so it was the end, el finito, al fin, between us and yet it didn't _feel _like that. You see, though, the only one my little "adage" _didn't _apply to was, well, me. 

What about me? 

Didn't I love her?

She was the first girl I ever loved. 

And sometimes, the way she looked at me, the way she would kiss me, her smile, her words, well, they all spoke the same thing. 

At least to me. 

So why wasn't I the one at the end of the aisle?

Why wasn't I the one with the picket fence around a nice suburban home outside Denver?

I really had loved her, you know, that kind of love that you can never get rid of because its so much a part of you, just as crucial as your lungs or hearts or kidneys. It was a mix of wistfulness and longing and a dash of despair, so much so, that I couldn't differentiate anything from it any more; I just knew it was love. 

[*]

Three years later, my sister told me she was getting married.

I could have known who she was getting married to before she even opened her mouth. Come to think of it, I could have known who way back in the tenth grade. 

And so they were married. Nothing extravagant or opulent but it tickled people's fancies none the less. 

Amy came up to me at the reception. We were watching her brother twirl my sister around on the dance floor when suddenly she laughed, a short, hoarse type of laugh. 

I turned to her with my eyebrows raised and when she noticed my gaze upon her, she blushed. Thirty years old and she still had the same blush she had fifteen years ago. 

"We're siblings-in-law!" she exclaimed. 

She sounded just like Daisy Buchanan or Holly Golightly or any other girl in this world that tries to hide her problems through her personality. 

I shook my head and said, "_We're _not siblings-in-laws, You're Delia's sister-in-law and I'm Bright's brother-in-law, but over all, we two are not related."

My voice was callous and hollow and I didn't even attempt to disguise it from her. She knew, deep down inside of herself, she knew and I, for that, I _wanted _to hurt her, cause a little pain because she had caused me so much. 

[*]

I didn't see her again for four years. I was out working on the East Coast and she was too busy living the life she had planned for herself all those years ago. 

It was at Christmas time and we were all gathered around the living room. I felt old, you know, sitting there looking at my siblings, the lines in my father's face, and thinking back to all the Christmases I had with my mother standing beside the piano, watching me play. 

I found her on the deck, standing in a drift of snowfall, watching the sun set behind the mountains some distance away. 

"I'm never going to leave this place," she sighed. 

She knew it was me because she knew everything about me. She knew my every little peculiarity, my every feeling, my every desire. It was just that sometimes, she just decided not to care. 

"What do you mean?" I said, coming to stand beside her, amazed that some things never change even after all these years, like our conversations. 

"Its just that," she sighed again, "Its just that, I was sitting here looking out at this sunset and thinking how beautiful it is. And then I was trying to think how many sunsets like this I have seen in my life time. For the normal person, it should only be in the single digits, but I've seen _thousands_! Its like ice cream, or something, you have too much of it, and you get sick of it."

I knew what she was trying to say so I didn't say anything but let her continue. 

"This is the type of town that people either escape from or move to, not just stick around for a lifetime. And I don't know what to do…He, _he, _loves it here, you know."

She sighed bitterly and this time turned to face me. "Do you ever regret something so much that it just consumes you?"

I nodded mutely. I had and I still do and the object of my regret was standing right in front of me, but she knew that and so I didn't need to say anything more. 

"I regret so many things, I don't even know where to start. Like giving up dance, I mean, I could have been _good _you know? Or, giving up that job in San Francisco after collage because Colin and I would be apart. Or…." She trailed off but I knew what she was saying. 

"I'm just so bored. Ab-so-lut-ely bored…stiff! I mean, nothing is ever new or exciting. Its just the same old each day throughout and sometimes I wonder why I even bother with any of it anyhow."

"Its like in high school, when you fail a test, you would feel this burden on your shoulder, wondering how to lift your grade and if you would ever get into collage, and then you could take comfort in the end of the day, that at your ten year high school reunion, you would show up and you would be happy and successful and everything would work out in the end, because it _always _does. Only this time, its like, another ten years would be like living one day over and over again, because nothing ever changes. And I'm so tired of it all."

She wanted me to say something, well, something in particular. And a part of me wanted to too. "Just leave Colin, come away with me, we'll go away from it all and you'll be happy again and able to feel, really _feel_, because I'll be at your side."

But somewhere during that speech, I think my heart stopped beating. My lungs stopped working. And my kidneys stopped churning. 

That love, that essential part of me, so entwined with my soul, seemed to wither away. Not wither away and die, mind you, because love can never die. Its too humanistic to just disappear all together, but it can pushed in the dark corners of the heart and stay there without causing pain or heartaches. And that is where I felt it heading, into the section that contained memories of my mother and my old hatred for my father. 

It was over and I wished desperately that it wasn't but there it was. Almost twenty years later, and there it was. Me without love to give and Amy Abbot desperately wanting some. 

I could have felt vindicated or triumphant, in a cruel sort of way, but I felt neither. In fact, I felt nothing, just a little sad because the moment finally came and now I would have to let it slide by, and so I turned on my heels and walked back towards the kitchen door, but not before watching the sun sink slowly below the horizon. 

[*]

I got married a year later. 

She's beautiful. Not the type of beautiful that I consider my mother, my sister, or even Amy to fall under; not the type where someone is all the more beautiful because of their personality and their love. 

She was just vivacious and stunning and the type of beautiful that everyone in the world can appreciate. She was fiery and hot tempered and just as quickly she could do the oddest things that just proved there was a heart in her too, although it didn't always manifest itself in every day actions. 

We were walking through Everwood awhile later. We were visiting my little nephew whom my sister made make his first trip to the tiny Colorado town from California at all of five months. 

It wasn't her type of town. She liked loud places, where people were all around, because she claimed, no matter what you are feeling, you can't help but feel a little bit better when you are consumed by somebody else. But she smiled and marveled at the simple beauty of it all and then she looked at me and sort of crinkled her nose, saying how she could, and at the same time, couldn't understand why I hated it so much. 

She wasn't my first love, I have to admit it. She wasn't the first girl I could understand without words or the first girl I walked around Everwood with. But I felt something for her, something indescribable and almost, indiscernible, and I figured that meant I was doing something right. 

All those years, I tried to analyze what I was feeling, tried to comprehend it because if I could understand it, I could conquer it. I made myself some sort of martyr for love and I made her the unattainable goal. But that really isn't _true _love, not the type of love where all you really want in life is for the person you love to be happy, and I smiled down at the _second _girl I loved. Maybe it wasn't first love, but it was true love. 

And as we watched the sunset as we walked towards the house, I hoped somewhere in the suburbs of Denver, it a house with a white picket fence, the first girl I ever loved would be staring up at the sunset, taking comfort in the majestic powers of nature, and realize, wherever there is a tomorrow, hope exists. 

**A/N: **Well…I hope you guys liked it. And I always do this for my stores, but I would like to apologize for any grammatical mistakes. I do check them over and I try to catch most of them, but sometimes we all slip. Anyway, Please….**Read and Review!! **[::Whispers:: Click the purple box down there!]


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